Dream: I was in a place where I was going to spend the night before an event the following day at 8. Since it was a sort of ex-classmates reunion, I thought 8pm since we were watching a movie that I considered boring since it was a “nerds” movie. I woke up the next day, and hesitated about going, until it was 8am, and therefore I was late already. I decided not to go.

Then the dream changed and I was witnessing two carriages/horses carrying a dog each. There were some antelope kind of animals around which I was trying to draw on a piece of paper. Then I noticed they had horns, and as I was trying to draw the horns, focusing on them intensely, they started to run… and so did the horses. Until at last, the only one running was me, alongside some other person(s?). Somebody handed me a baby antelope to carry on my shoulders, but I couldn’t keep it with me and it fell.

Then we stopped running. I was surrounded by other people and some children. I went down a path with the children until we found an structure built by the children. Initially it looked like a guillotine, but then I looked closely and it became a church as tall as me. It was very badly shaped that I thought some children had made it.

Interpretation: I still do not have a solid interpretation. This dream presents me with certain complications, given the many bizarre occurrences, and the randomness of its content. Let’s make some associations to start with:

I’m again dealing with things past, with my life as it was when I was a student. I wouldn’t go to the movie/event right now, because I consider it a waste of time, and because I do not want to be seen as a “nerd.” Being a “nerd” was an stigma of which I suffered in those years. More than a “nerd,” I was afraid of being labeled impotent with women, and boring/childish. In the dream, I’m happy I didn’t go, thus showing people I’m not a “nerd.” Not sure what this part really means. It seems I mistook (on purpose?) 8am from 8pm. I mistook day hours from night hours. May it mean I’m trying to avoid something, that is, day-hour living by my studies of the unconscious, night-hour living?

There may be no right or wrong, perhaps just an assessment of my current situation in those days. I would prefer to pretend to live in society, but it all is a pretention. What really matters to me is my studies of the unconscious, of spirituality. This, however, if known, would make of me a real-life “nerd.” Not sure if I can deduct something else from this dream. I’m in company, so this implies multiplicity (my neurosis?), and I’m late for the event, what event? would it be what happens next in my dream? Here, I’m late, and I miss my appointment. Then, I miss the antelopes as they run away from me. I’m trying to grab my unconscious with my “nerd’s” intellect, which is ineffective, but keeps me safe. From my previous dream, we know I may not be integrating anything from my dreams, which makes me a total “nerd.” (LoL)

Then, the gazelles, or antelopes, do not bring any memories, other than the few instances I saw animals like that when I traveled throughout the US. These antelopes, however, had something in them that reminded me of the antelopes in the African savanna. They are the perfect prey animal for both carnivore animals and primitive humans who hunt them, and “sacrifice” them. I was observing them, and drawing them at ease, until I started noticing their horns instead. I thought they looked beautiful, and I was amazed at their design (I hadn’t noticed them before). That’s when they started to run. My association experiment tells me they were running because they felt threatened. Is it the animal in me that is afraid of what is to come?

Interestingly, in mythology, the antelope is the animal symbol of the Anahata chakra, that is, the heart center. That is so because, it is said, once we reach Anahata, Purusha or consciousness is for the first time seen. Given that consciousness, and unconsciousness both merge in the heart, as in the feeling of “love,” it is a very difficult feeling to maintain. We get out of it, if ever. We lose balance, then consciousness leaves us. It feels threatened, just like the antelope. (I have seen antelopes in other dreams, and they are always the animal to be witnessed, which they must either want it or not, which means, they will run). In this dream, they let themselves be witnessed. But my observing the horns scares them. What does this mean? For now, I have no idea.

I have no associations concerning the dogs. They were just observing, and lying passively as the carriage/horse moved. One of the dogs was being dragged through the sandy floor, and he seemed not to care. We have two domestic animals (one more than the other), two dogs being carried by horses. Are the horses two different instincts within me, so what are the dogs? Let us continue.

These dogs were hound dogs!! Yet, they were not active in the chase! Was there a chase? Wouldn’t it make sense the hound dogs chase the antelopes? This would make them scare, for sure. Would the dogs represent my intellect trying to chase a certain feeling (for I was having interesting feelings at the moment of this writing)? Would the swift antelope, as swift as the experience of love depart me as soon as my intellect is involved? Not sure.

Towards the end of the chase (by whom or what?), there remained only me and other people running. Am I afraid like a prey animal, perhaps? Then, someone handed me a baby antelope, so I grabbed it by one of his pair of legs, but couldn’t grab the other pair of legs, and carry it around my shoulders. I had to drop the animal. Was I handed over an animal for a sacrifice? Was this antelope the feeling of merriness/love I would experience through yoga which I can’t either grab for more than a few seconds?

Then I’m with children with whom I go on an small hiking adventure. There I encounter what seemed to be a guillotine. My initial fear was that someone could get hurt, but when I looked closely, I realize it was just a sort of artistic sculpture in the form of a church-guillotine, all painted in white, made out of junk metal, and maybe card box, or some kind of not so dense solid material. Here again, we encounter the theme of “sacrifice”, a “beheading”?!

In waking life, in those days, I often had vivid emotions when I recall the French revolution, and I often fantasize about a “global guillotine event!” I find myself projecting my shadows on the world’s elites that are so power lustful. In the dream, the church’s proportions are taller, but resemble the Chimayo church in New Mexico. I remember the wooden cross within the top chamber. Maybe there was a bell too. The children in the dream do not recall any memories, really; but I felt the cheerfulness, recklessness, and adventurous attitude that children have.

My current, but on-going interpretation would be something like this: within me there’s a whole ecosystem. The horses and dogs as well as the antelopes are within me, but what do they represent? The horses could represent my body, and the hounds my intellect. Is there anything more hound-like of which I possess other than my “intuitive-thinking”? Indeed, I’m an intuitive thinker. I often say that I “smell” what to study or learn about next. There are no guidelines (that I would follow) so I just follow my own curiosity. The horses and dogs are my ego side (body and mind/intellect). The antelope is a product of the unconscious. As I’m analyzing dreams, I’m, so to say, making a picture, an image of it. The antelope is one of those good-feeling products of my yoga work. This, however, is short-lived and runs away from me.

I associate the antelope with the heart center (Anahata chakra). The horns are, perhaps, the deeper unconscious. They are not simply formless darkness, but well-established horns. The horns may be the deeper unconscious of the instincts. This, I’m not allowed to observe deeply for I haven’t integrated them. This scares the animal, the agile antelope, for I disturbed their peace.

My dream pressed on me strongly when I was handed a baby antelope, but I couldn’t handle it, and the “sacrifice” slipped away from me (was it intent for a sacrifice?). The baby antelope was alive, yet it felt as if dead. Then the white church/guillotine vision, together with the children that is a vision not at all superfluous. What is a church, or a temple but the representation of a big sacrifice? What are children if not innocence and new-beginnings? Would it also represent my childishness? I’m not sure. In this dream context, my guess would be that the sacrifice is of the heart, but I cannot handle it. I can’t get a hold of myself, my own heart. This slipping due to the fact I have not integrated the darkest parts of me, perhaps my aggression, perhaps deeper instincts. My body is simply a vehicle for the hounds, my intellect. What is promised, after a sacrifice as such, is to be “like children.” Isn’t this the goal of all spiritual pursuits? As the antelopes escape, so I’m not just me and my horses and dogs, but a multitude. I’m shattered into different personas, different emotional-complexes, neurosis. This is my current assessment, of course, subject to change as new dreams and insights come, and as new understandings from my study of the body, mind, emotions and mythology come. This dream is very mythological, just as many, if not all dreams are.